
Friday, May 28, 2010
Happy Memorial Day

Thursday, May 27, 2010
Neater

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Neat

Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Distracted

Street Fighter 4 felt like the game I knew and loved, nicely updated. I played the hell out of it, picking Gen because he seemed so odd, and even got into the SLC SF scene, playing in tournaments, and against some truly great players. It was tons of fun.

Monday, May 24, 2010
In-N-Out

Friday, May 21, 2010
Must... Play...

Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Re: Re: Addiction is Quality?

Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Re: Addiction is Quality?
I thought I'd follow up on some comments from yesterday. Hopefully Ethan doesn't feel picked on, since I agree with everything he wrote and liked his feedback; but it prompted more thought.
Ethan pointed out that addiction could also be called "fun." This seems utterly appropriate because players are clearly engrossed from moment to moment. However, I wonder how often the intended experience is to make players feel addicted instead of afraid, sorrowful, powerful, etc. Though I admire games whose sole purpose is to be engrossingly addictive and many players prefer this kind of fun to the exclusion of others, I wonder if many times, designers and players get engrossing experiences confused with engrossing addictions.
I'm not sure what the point of my musing is. Perhaps because I care about greater purpose in games, I find myself wanting to parse the term "fun." Some insist that the "purpose" of a game is fun, and nothing more. I can see how "fun" could be used as a catch-all term that covers an "immersive experience," but I don't think it's fair to those who think games' only worthwhile endeavor is entertainment without higher purpose, nor is it useful to those trying to enable greater purpose, only to have it confused with addiction.


Monday, May 17, 2010
Addiction is Quality?

But can it be broken down so simply? Exceptions to the rule pop in my head too easily. For example, I can reasonably predict the results of a night of Street Fighter, Tribes, or Subspace but I still give them high marks. Maybe the exception to the rule is competitive multiplayer; that player unpredictability is more interesting than single-player unpredictability to me. I don't appreciate random events driven by numbers nearly as much.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Transitions Ahoy
Level transitions are working nicely now. Once a few more stats are tracked (easy!) and multiplayer gets scrubbed (hard!) it should feel like a so-so game, and the fun, advanced design starts getting implemented.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Tumblr

Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Going Hungry
Do you ever get so busy you forget to eat lunch? Women always look at me in horror when I ask this, while guys just knowingly nod.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Left Turn at Albuquerque

Monday, May 10, 2010
To OCD, or not?

Friday, May 7, 2010
Heavenly Numbers

Thursday, May 6, 2010
Save Games
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Junior High Reader
I've been returning to books I loved in junior high as an escape from middling adult fiction, and they've been thrilling enough to make me wonder if I should even consider myself an adult reader.
It seems that in all popular "mature" fiction, the format is usually pages upon pages of middling setup and tension building with only a few pages of payoff, and I'm tired of it. Is it worth slogging through 700 pages of blah in anticipation of 10 pages of holy-hell-yes? It reminds me of Sixth Sense, which upon first viewing was like 1.5 hours of moderate scares followed by a couple minutes of thrill, and everyone walked away happy while I complained about the 1.5 hours. (I actually enjoyed the movie more knowing its secret. The premise of a ghost not knowing about his death, and watching how he acts with that in mind, was more fun to watch.) It also reminds me of why I stopped playing JRPGs. I asked myself whether it was worth sitting through 60 hours of bad story and a gameplay system that I "got" within the first couple of hours when I could replace the entire experience with 5 novels worth of excellent storytelling (irony!).
I contrast this with young adult fiction like, say, Harry Potter, which is more or less exciting from page to page, and still builds up to a thrilling conclusion. The first few books, at least, were real page-turners. Maybe all I want is a "page turner," and I'm giving false credit to the things that seem "meant" for a junior high audience.
Maybe that's the problem. Does everyone regard page turners as immature, or is that a personal bias? I just want to be entertained through the entire read, not strung along for a wow ending, no matter the wow.
Lately, I've been going back to books I loved in junior high to see how they hold up, and so far, so good. I borrowed the Dark Elf Trilogy from the library, and it was entertaining as hell, particularly book one. I'll gladly accept the label of "immature reader" if I get to enjoy myself this much.
I'm not an avid reader, so my opinion isn't serious. I probably just need better recommendations, or need to read more to mature my tastes.


Maybe that's the problem. Does everyone regard page turners as immature, or is that a personal bias? I just want to be entertained through the entire read, not strung along for a wow ending, no matter the wow.

I'm not an avid reader, so my opinion isn't serious. I probably just need better recommendations, or need to read more to mature my tastes.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Experience First, pt.6

But people play games for experiences, not mechanics. Crafting design is not necessarily more important than crafting audio, art, or story, and its true value can only be assessed in reference to the experience it informs.

Monday, May 3, 2010
Experience First, pt.5
Another game with questionable gameplay that might have been a boon to the experience is Everquest. As a rabid fan of MUDs in college, I was excited by the idea of playing a "graphical MUD" (MMORPG), and dreamed about what it would be like to see the worlds I previously only read about. Ultima Online was interesting, but I was more excited by Everquest because it seemed more similar to the MUDs I used to play.
But it was a big disappointment because it seemed so convoluted. It was incredibly difficult to tell where to go, what to do, how to manipulate my interface, or do things with my fellow players, and what documentation existed was actually more confusing than some text-based MUDs I had played, and that's saying a lot. I was so unimpressed that I quickly passed on the experience, but was surprised at how it kept rising in popularity. I wondered why.
The sense of confusion was so vivid -- players shouting in channels begging for information from other players that might be a little farther ahead -- that it made me wonder if that early lack of information actually helped community form. You needed to make connections with other players just to make it out the front door to a confusing city or know where to train, and community is a big part of an MMORPG appealing. It's interesting to wonder whether poor starting information along with required grouping, corpse-runs, and a host of other painful conventions -- that WoW improved on, but needed to have an exhaustively fun, lone experience in place to do (in addition to new social mechanics) -- was really a benefit.
Labeling gameplay "good" or "bad" is meaningless without considering the experience they inform. Sometimes, even random guessing, bad controls, and awful learning curves can help build a classic. Tomorrow, a final word on "experience first" vs. "mechanics first" design. [1][2][3][4][5][6]

The sense of confusion was so vivid -- players shouting in channels begging for information from other players that might be a little farther ahead -- that it made me wonder if that early lack of information actually helped community form. You needed to make connections with other players just to make it out the front door to a confusing city or know where to train, and community is a big part of an MMORPG appealing. It's interesting to wonder whether poor starting information along with required grouping, corpse-runs, and a host of other painful conventions -- that WoW improved on, but needed to have an exhaustively fun, lone experience in place to do (in addition to new social mechanics) -- was really a benefit.

Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)